Good Samaritans: Why They Heed Cries For Help

You look out your window, and through a driving rain you see a man attacking a teenage girl.

He`s punching her and tearing her clothes. In the glow of the streetlight, you can make out a knife in his hand.

She cries out again, ``Please help me!``

Your heart is racing. Somebody`s got to do something, but who? If you help, you could be killed. Surely there are others hearing the screams. Maybe they`ll help. But maybe they`re thinking the same thing you are. . . .

Many neighbors living near the corner of 34th Street and Bryant Avenue South in Minneapolis were shaken by this situation recently when a 17-year-old girl was assaulted outside their homes. But one neighbor didn`t waste time thinking.

Wearing only his undershorts, 30-year-old Leslie Peak leaped out of bed, bolted through his front door and headed full speed for the attacker.

Crazy?

The victim didn`t think so. When the unarmed Peak closed in, the attacker decided to take off, and Peak attended to the bleeding girl until police arrived.

For his efforts, Peak received the Minneapolis Police Department`s second highest award, the Medal of Valor.

Would you have acted as Peak did?

Probably not. Those who directly intervene in dangerous situations usually are self-assured people who are certain they will emerge victorious, according to research conducted by psychologists Gilbert Geis of the University of California at Irvine and Ted Huston of the University of Texas. ``The thing that overwhelmingly came out is that they really have a feeling of confidence,`` Geis said.

These front-line Good Samaritans almost always are male, and they often are trained in police work, self-defense, boxing or first aid. Many don`t share the fear of knives that ordinary people have, and many have witnessed more crime than the average citizen.

How does Leslie Peak fit these descriptions?

Though average-looking in street clothes, Peak is an extremely strong man whose hobby is power lifting, a form of weight lifting that builds strength more than body contours. Before he moved to Minneapolis two years ago, Peak spent a lot of time in the gyms of Omaha teaching younger kids how to box. He also knows first aid.

Is he self-assured? On that rainy night in May, Peak never even stopped to look out the window. He just sped barefoot toward the struggling pair, unswayed by the blade that the assailant held high in an attempt to warn him away.

Peak said he would have entered the struggle even if ``four or five``

assailants were involved. Indeed, several days after the incident, he stopped a fight in which a man and a woman were using a baseball bat on another man.

Minneapolis Police Chief Tony Bouza, who awarded the medal to Peak, said later, ``I think that a citizen risking his life is something heroic and beautiful, and we all wish we could be up to it.``

But studies reported in the June edition of Psychology Today magazine indicate there are many reasons why bystanders often are not up to it.

People who are insecure or antisocial, for example, are less likely to help crime victims, while people who feel morally obligated to the victims are more likely to give assistance. The crime scene itself is a strong predictor of whether a third party will intervene.

For instance, while it would seem that a victim`s chances of being helped would increase with the number of people who witness a crime, the reverse is true.

This phenomenon, known as the ``bystander effect,`` exists for two incongruent reasons: Bystanders assume someone else will be the Good Samaritan, and they interpret the inaction of other bystanders as a mandate not to get involved.

Researchers say the bystander effect can be expected in all kinds of emergencies, criminal or medical.

Studies also have found that if witnesses believe a struggling woman is married to her attacker, the number of people likely to respond is very low.

R. Lance Shotland, a psychology professor Pennsylvania State University and author of the Psychology Today article, demonstrated this effect in dramatic, staged assaults.

``Bystanders who witnessed a violent staged fight between a man and a woman and heard the woman shout, `Get away from me, I don`t know you!` gave help 65 percent of the time,`` Shotland wrote. ``But those who saw the fight and heard the woman scream, `Get away from me, I don`t know why I ever married you!` helped only 19 percent of the time.``

``In our study,`` Shotland continued, ``the non-responsive bystanders who heard the `married` woman scream said they were reluctant to help because they weren`t sure their help was wanted.

``They also viewed the `married` woman as much less severely injured than the woman attacked by the `stranger,` despite the fact that the two fights were staged identically.``

Shotland also discovered that bystanders expect the husband to stay and fight if someone intervenes, while they expect a stranger to flee.